I carried out my initial data collection on the 5th of October, two weeks ago. I would like to have moved forward with the project sooner, but unfortunately midterm exams in some other classes took priority.
I wanted to investigate my hypothesis that taller snowberry plants produce more berries than shorter snowberry plants. However, an issue I ran into was that the plants grow in thickets, with multiple reproductive methods, so it is tough to tell where one plant individual begins and another ends.
My solution was to create a 16″ x 16″ pvc square. When sampling, I could sample the berries inside the square, so that roughly the same amount of plant was sampled every time. I also used a random number generator to determine how many paces I walked before sampling. If there was a snowberry plant there I sampled it, if not I generated another number.
My honest review of the sampling session is that it went almost flawlessly. Data collection was efficient and easy. The number generator helped me to keep my choice of replicate random and impartial.
I flagged the replicates as NT (near trail) and HT (human trimmed). My goal will be to attain at least ten replicates of NT, NT & HT, and neither. I have not observed that are human trimmed but not near a trail or walking path.
One pattern I noticed in my initial data that surprised me was that there seemed to be no drop off in berry number between the trimmed and untrimmed plants. I don’t think I have enough data to draw any sort of conclusion, but I am interested to see if this pattern holds as I observe more data.
In conclusion, I definitely plan to continue sampling with the same methods.